Front row start for Pedrosa in 3rd with Marquez in 4th for GP of Japan
It was a toughly fought battle for pole position in Motegi, with several riders vying for the top spot and ten riders within six seconds of each other. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez at times both led the session but on his final lap, in the penultimate corner, Dani lost the front end of his Honda RC213V and with it the chance to take pole position and his time of 1’44.755 placed him 3rd behind Dovizioso and Rossi.
Teammate and Championship leader Marc Marquez was also battling for pole and missed out on a front row start by just 0.020s. His time of 1’44.775 places him 4th for tomorrow’s 24 lap race, where he has his first opportunity to seal the 2014 World Championship.
Dani Pedrosa
“I’m happy today because we had a good qualifying session and were setting some good times. Unfortunately I crashed on the last lap, almost at the final corner, when I was going quickly to try to get pole position. Luckily I'm fine and tomorrow I will try to use this front row spot to get a good start. It could be a very tight race, because there are many riders who have shown a good pace and this is a circuit that allows for very close lap times. We’ll see what happens but we will strive to do our best and we will remain fully focused. It will be important to ride with skill and bravery.”
Marc Marquez
"I'm happy, even though we didn't achieve our goal of getting onto the front row, because we have improved ahead of tomorrow. The pace that we have is good. It's a pity that we didn't find a perfect lap in qualifying, but we are confident for tomorrow and ready to fight for the win. Our pace is similar to that of Rossi, Pedrosa and Lorenzo and this is important. We also shouldn't overlook Dovizioso, who also has a very good pace on race tyres.”
Results Session
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Rider standings
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Points | Team | Constructor |
|---|
Location Information
Located amongst the vast natural beauty of the northern Kanto district, the twin ring circuit at Motegi in Japan consists of a 1.5 mile oval and a 2.9 mile road course constructed to international standards. Built by Honda as the ultimate test facility in August 1997, the road circuit became… read more.
| Length | 4.801 kilometres / 2.983 miles |
| Width | 15 metres |
| Left corners | 6 |
| Right corners | 8 |
| Longest straight | 0.762 kilometres / 0.473 miles |
| Constructed | 1997 |
Twin Ring Motegi, Haga District, Tochigi, Japan - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m 43.018s (167.7km/h) Pedro Acosta (KTM, 2024) |
| Race Lap | 1m 44.461s (165.4km/h) Jorge Martin (Ducati, 2024) |
| Race Time | 42m 09.790s (163.9km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2024) |
| 2024 Sprint Winner | Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) |
| 2024 Race Winner | Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) |
